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Cisco Microsoft Windows

Windows 10 USB-to-Serial adapter Woes…

About 2 months ago, I had to go to a new customer site that was down and diagnose a problem.  Easy, I’ve done this a thousand times over the past 15 years…  Device not recognized. My USB-to-Serial adapter (no name brand off of Amazon) wasn’t working.  Code 10 Error.

I’m documenting this because, as infrequently as I actually use a console cable anymore, I tend to forget how to fix the issue when it arises.  2018 has been a funny year for Microsoft patching.  Seems to be a crap shoot of what will break once you apply new patches.  Windows 10 patches haven’t been immune to this.

Here’s how I fixed it.

  1. Download the PL2303_64bit_Installer.exe
  2. Unplug the USB-to-Serial Adapter
  3. Open up the previously downloaded exe.
  4. When prompted, plug in the USB-to-Serial Adapter
  5. Reboot

Now magically, you’ll have an adapter that provides a console port.

Some additional troubleshooting:  Apparently there is more than one version of the adapter on my computer but the one that works is 3.3.2.102 from 9/24/2008.

Hope this helps.

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